Just had to share this. With quotes like this;"I also had a Catholic priest tell me I was supporting an unnatural act, I found that quite interesting coming from someone who has taken an oath of celibacy for his whole life. I haven't done it so I don't know what it's about."

and this;"We are not declaring nuclear war on a foreign state; we are not bringing a virus in that could wipe out our agriculture sector forever."

The speech was good. But did you see the parliament break out into song????

Yesterday, here in the US, our legislature had a very different kind of a day.

First, Senate caved in and decided to honor NRA lobbying efforts over the demands of their constituents. I've never seen Obama as pissed off as he was responding to the vote.

And then, in a act that received practically no publicity, the Senate formally introduced immigration reform legislation. If enacted as written, this legislation would provide a certain set of undocumented immigrants with conditional residency for a 10 year period, after which they can pay a $2000 fine and apply for permanent residency,[1] (green card) and then three years and many hundreds of dollars later, can apply for citizenship.

But here comes the fun part.

They can only apply for a green card in 10 years IF the US government has successfully constructed a fence across the entire Mexican border.

You can't make this stuff up.

Overall, I've gotta say I'm much more impressed with New Zealand's legislative body than my own nation's.

but those who have been paying social security taxes for years or decades will not get any credit towards the literally billions of dollars of payments that undocumented individuals have paid into the system over the past couple of decades

Being an Aussie and having holidayed in NZ I've gotta disagree with you regarding accents - they are so similar that it's not until one or the other says a particular word that will set us apart. Mostly it's the way the New Zealanders say the letter 'I', it sounds more like a 'U', so "fish and chips" become "fush and chups".

New Zealand has invited same-sex Aussies to come and get married. Unfortunately it won't be recognised in Australia.

Logged

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

But wait?! Is this the start of that 'slippery slope'[1]that opponents to same sex marriage are always going on about? Allow same sex marriage and suddenly a crab will be able to legally marry his claw. Oh the humanity!